SIR LOUIS MALLET'S PAMPHLET.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—You have done a public service in directing attention to. Sir Louis Mallet's admirable pamphlet, and its protest against our constantly increasing war expenditure. You quote his statement that it has increased from sixteen millions in 1843, to twenty-nine in 1884. The war party, the " prestige " party,. would make it fifty if they could. But you and Sir Louis Mallet omit to mention the protest which Mr. Cobden raised against the sixteen millions, which had grown to eighteen millions in 1848, and how he advocated a return to the expenditure under the Duke of Wellington in 1835, which was eleven millions only. In fifty years it has grown from eleven millions to twenty-nine- millions, and the cry of the alarmists is for more, as it has ever been, and will continue to be until a resolute stand is made against naval and military claims and the wretched Imperialism of Disraeli.
" We must stop short somewhere," you observe. Then let us abandon the hateful " spirited foreign policy " which has led to this vast increase in our expenditure and involved ns in external troubles. Compare the eleven millions of 1835 with the twenty- nine millions of 1884, and let ns ask ourselves if the immense difference had been applied through all these years in, say, ex- propriating Irish landlords, instead of casting it into the abyss of war expenditure, whether some satisfactory return would not
Previous page
